LACUNARIA (LAQUEARIA)

LACUNARIA (Laquearia). – As in earlier civil buildings, in Christian basilicas the ceiling consisted of intersecting beams forming a coffered structure, which could be composed of quadrangular, polygonal, or circular elements, in wood or plaster (Pliny, Nat. hist., 35, 7 and 36; Isidore, Orig., XIX, 12, 1), subsequently coated with color, for the most part gold, both in Jerusalem in the Constantinian Martyrium (Eusebius, Vita Const., III, 32 and 36; Paulinus of Nola, Ep., 31), and in the basilicas of Rome (Prudentius, Peristeph., XI, 219–20; XII, 52; E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures au VIIIᵉ siècle, Paris 1856, p. 54); likewise in Gaul (Gregory of Tours, De gloria martyrum, 103: PL 71, 793) and in Spain (Prudentius, Peristeph., III, 197–98).